A Letter from Australia: Clean water essential for quality of life

Dear friends,

Availability of water is, of course, essential to life itself, and clean water is essential to the quality of life of people everywhere in the world.

In Australia we have been forced to come to terms with these two aspects of water because Australia, even at the best of times, is the driest habitable continent in the world.

At the moment the absence of water means we are experiencing one of the worst droughts on record, especially in Queensland and New South Wales. It is so bad that for the first time ever Australia is contemplating the import of some types of grain.

In a revival of old tradition, herds of cattle are being "overlanded" from northern Australia down the old stock routes to the roadsides of Victoria where there is still grass. In this way some graziers aim to preserve their breeding stock for better times.

This drought is caused in part by the el Nino effect in the Pacific, and is an example of the physical relationship the continent of Australia has with the climate of the Asia Pacific region.

Drought is a serious problem in rural Australia, and is having an effect in the cities (where 90 percent of Australians live) in the form of higher prices for some food stocks.

It is also creating ideal conditions for bushfires, which even before the height of a hot summer -- January to March next year, have threatened homes and burned thousands of hectares of bush in Queensland, New South Wales and West Australia.

And in Sydney there is talk of water rationing this summer, limiting the amount of water people can use on their gardens.

A quick perusal of The Jakarta Post over the past few months demonstrates that the availability of clean water is also a matter of concern in Indonesia.

You have had problems with bushfires, and with the supply of water in Jakarta.

A The Jakarta Post headline in July said "piped water to be available to 60 percent of city population" with completion of Buaran II water treatment plant.

Of course that means that 40 percent of Jakarta's population still do not have piped water yet. This even effects four star hotels on Jl. Thamrin.

"Hotel forced to spend additional funds to buy water" said a headline on Sept. 10. A decrease in water pressure and an insufficient supply from the hotels artesian well meant that it had to bring in an additional 243 tons of water.

In September Governor Suryadi said to residents of one area of Jakarta complaining of water shortages that "many other areas in the city are also suffering from the shortage of clean water, so please be patient."

And in an article to mark World Food Day on Oct. 16, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization asked that attention be focussed on water conservation.

Indonesia and Australia have many water problems in common, although the scale is different, given that the population of greater Jakarta is about double that of Melbourne and Sydney combined.

Population growth in regional cities, and the adequacy of environmental services is one of the biggest problems facing us.

The World Bank in a report released in September estimates that there will be 26 megacities, with populations of 10 million or more by the year 2000, and half of them will be in Asia.

It says that growth is accompanied by health hazards of urban pollution: unclean water and air, inadequate sanitation, drainage and solid waste disposal and poor industrial waste management.

Further, the report estimates that "only 40 percent of urban homes in developing nations are connected to sewers, and more than 90 percent of waste water is discharged without treatment."

Paradoxically, given the differences in populations, some Australian cities developed sooner and built the basic infrastructure for water and sewage earlier than many Indonesian cities.

This is not to say that Sydney, for example still does not have problems with water pollution and water treatment. It does.

In fact water quality is perhaps the biggest environmental problem facing Australia. Given it's scarcity, this is an unhappy reflection on our history.

But Government and many private companies have continued to innovate and develop programs in water and waste-water treatment, and there is an increasing commitment to doing something about water quality all over Australia.

One example of how things have deteriorated in the short duration of European settlement is to consider Australia's greatest river system.

The Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee river system drains about a third of Australia. The drought has caused the Darling to run dry in parts, and other sections are periodically infested with blue-green algae.

When European discoverer Captain Charles Sturt discovered this mighty system, he stood at the spot where the Murrumbidge joins the Murray and there was, he wrote, a splendid view, and "transparent waters running over a sandy bed" 12 to 20 feet deep.

Stand there today and you'll see a river choked with a mixture of algae, noxious aquatic plants and bacterial scums.

Anyone who came into contact with the water in this part of the river would almost certainly suffer skin and eye irritations.

That is a tragedy, and Federal and State Governments have made a commitment to clean it up by the year 2001. Similar efforts need to be extended to all Australian rivers and wetlands, rural and urban.

Some of the technology developed to cope with Australian water problems is relevant to Indonesia, and a number of programs have been set up to apply Australian experience to the Indonesian water problems.

Pollution control programs are being assisted through the Environment Impact Management Agency, BAPEDAL.

The East Java Pollution Control Implementation Project is a five year program of technical assistance, technology demonstration and training support, which commenced last December at a cost of $A22 million.

Water supply, water management, water treatment -- these are issues central to the sustainable development of every country in the world, including Australia and Indonesia.

We cannot do much about the weather, but we can co-operate to ensure that what rain does fall is treated in the most appropriate way, used and re-used for the benefit of the whole environmental system -- including the people.

Ros Kelly has been a Labor Member of Parliament for Canberra, Australia's national capital since 1980. She was minister for Defense Support from 1987 to 1989 and Minister for the Environment from 1990 to 1994.